Love

"L’expérience nous montre qu’aimer ce n’est point nous regarder l’un l’autre mais regarder ensemble dans la même direction. (Page 203)"

"Both the preservation of the species and selfish sexual pleasure reduce the partner to a mere tool and destroy his [or her] dignity. Love alone bestows a spiritual meaning upon marriage, and justifies it by elevating it to perceive the countenance of the beloved in God."

"Let no man think that he is loved by any who loveth none."

"Even as the Sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so thou also wait not for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do thy duty; nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou wilt be loved like the Sun."

"The hutzpah of our love is pleasing to you, O Lord, just as it pleased you that we should steal from your bounty."

"But nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and the pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love."

"Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire. (IV)"

"Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here or there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise."

"Desire itself is movement Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving, Only the cause and end of movement, Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being."

"Can we only love Something created in our own imaginations? Are we all in fact unloving and unloveable? Then one is alone, and if one is alone Then lover and beloved are equally unreal And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams."

"Lady of silences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Terminate torment Of love unsatisfied The greater torment Of love satisfied End of the endless Journey to no end Conclusion of all that Is inconclusible Speech without word and Word of no speech Grace to the Mother For the Garden Where all love ends."

"Affection is the broadest basis of a good life."

"I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear."

"Women know no perfect love: Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong; Man clings because the being whom he loves Is weak and needs him."

"'Tis what I love determines how I love."

"But is it what we love, or how we love, That makes true good?"

"Whose is the world? Whose is thought? His who loves them."

"The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart."

"My God may not be your idea of God, but one thing I know of my God — he makes me a humanitarian... Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And for me God is the First Cause. David and the prophets knew that there could be no love without justice or justice without love. I don't need any other religious trappings."

"I believe that we don't need to worry about what happens after this life, as long as we do our duty here—to love and to serve."

"Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it."

"Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things."

"Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. "Faith works by love.""

"Love is no ingredient in a merely speculative faith, but it is the life and soul of a practical faith... A speculative faith consists only in the assent of the understanding, but in a saving faith there is also the consent of the heart."

"I was not, I lived and loved, I am not."

"To know me is to love me. This cliche is popular for a reason, because most of us, I imagine, believe deep in our hearts that if anyone truly got to know us, they'd truly get to love us - or at least know why we're the way we are. The problem in life, maybe the central problem, is that so few people ever seem to have sufficient curiosity to do the job on us that we know we deserve."

"Love is so exquisitely elusive. It cannot be bought, cannot be badgered, cannot be hijacked. It is available only in one rare form: as the natural response of a healthy mind and healthy heart."

"You can't be wise and in love at the same time."

"Love is all there is, it makes the world go round."

"Love one another. My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus. You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. If you take an attitude of love toward everybody you meet, you'll eventually get along."

"Love will begin when the world ends."

"Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night."

"For pity melts the mind to love."

"My heart's so full of joy, That I shall do some wild extravagance Of love in public, and the foolish world, Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad."

"Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are."

"Love taught him shame, and shame with love at strife Soon taught the sweet civilities of life."

"Love is a passion Which kindles honor into noble acts."

"It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most."

"It's afterwards you realize that the feeling of happiness you had with a man didn't neccessarily prove that you loved him."

"Love is either rewarded with reciprocation, or with secret contempt."

"The vastness of the universe-and love, the thing that makes the vastness bearable-is out of reach to the arrogant...Love asks us to get beyond the infantile projections of our personal hopes and fears, to embrace the other's reality. This kind of unflinching love never stops daring to go deeper, to reach higher."

"A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought with gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was a fiery flame: which when I did behold I fell a-weeping and I cried, "Sweet youth, Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove These pleasant realms? I pray thee speak me sooth What is thy name?" He said, "My name is Love." Then straight the first did turn himself to me And cried, "He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame." Then sighing said the other, "Have thy will, "I am the Love that dare not speak its name.""

"I have seen the truth... It is not as though I had invented it with my mind. I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul forever.... In one day, one hour, everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love."

"To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her."

"Fathers and teachers, I ponder, "What is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love."

"Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and untroubled joy. So do not trouble it, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their joy, do not go against God's intent. Man, do not exhale yourself above the animals: they are without sin, while you in your majesty defile the earth by your appearance on it, and you leave the traces of your defilement behind you — alas, this is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for like the angels they too are sinless, and they live to soften and purify our hearts, and, as it were, to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child. My young brother asked even the birds to forgive him. It may sound absurd, but it is right none the less, for everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact with everything else: touch one place, and you set up a movement at the other end of the world. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but, then, it would be easier for the birds, and for the child, and for every animal if you were yourself more pleasant than you are now. Everything is like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds, too, consumed by a universal love, as though in ecstasy, and ask that they, too, should forgive your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however absurd people may think it."

"It's just the same story as a doctor once told me," observed the elder. "He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. 'I love humanity,' he said, 'but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,' he said, 'I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.'"

"If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others."

"Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times — but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once."

"On our earth we can only love with suffering and through suffering. We cannot love otherwise, and we know of no other sort of love. I want suffering in order to love. I long, I thirst, this very instant, to kiss with tears the earth that I have left, and I don't want, I won't accept life on any other!""